Recommended American Nonfiction
Explore the best recommended American nonfiction, from James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. Discover essential true crime and history books in this curated guide to iconic U.S. nonfiction reads.
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In Cold Blood
by Truman Capote
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The most famous true crime novel of all time "chills the blood and exercises the intelligence" (The New York Review of Books)—and haunted its author long after he finished writing it. On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. In one of the first non-fiction novels ever written, Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, generating both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.
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Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
by James Agee
Words and photographs describe the daily lives of typical sharecropper families in the American South.
